A Father's Letters to his Sons

On Business

Young Entreprenuer Operating his Business by Computer, by StartupStockPhotos

Dear Son,

One thing I wish more people would do is to run a small business at lest once in their lives. Not just a hobby that makes a little bit of money, but a real business that brings in a few thousand dollars every month.

Making money makes sure that you can serve people well. The entrepreneur has to run the business in a way that makes a little money so that he and his family won’t go hungry while he gives people that service., and so that he will have a little extra to make the business bigger and better, so he can serve more people, and do a better job of it, and he makes sure it makes a little profit besides that so that f someone else wants to help out with a loan or donation, they will know that they will get their money back plus a little more. And of course, he needs money to make sure his own life outside the business is happy and fulfilling.

Business is highly creative, especially in the early days. After all, the person who created the business had to see a problem, and either invent a tool to help other people solve the problem, find a way to make money solving it for other people and yet still make it affordable enough that people are willing to buy it, or they need to look at someone else’s service and come up with a smarter more affordable way to provide that service.

Over time as a business grows, one entrepreneur is often not enough to meet the demands of the customer. When that happens, the entrepreneur needs to hire more people to run that business. He hires more people, creating jobs that give honest work to other people in his community. That can be an incredible help.

Corporations are businesses that have created a popular service that so many people want that they had to grow and expand into something that hires hundreds of people. They need factories of their own, accountants, secretaries, lawyers, and more on hand because they serve so many people.

Unfortunately, corporations often get so big and so full of people who are just there to have a job and don’t care about being of service the way the founder of the company does that they can lose sight of the idea that they are servants. When their leaders get that way, because the original entrepreneur retires or sells off the business, then corporations can become obsessed only with making money for the people who have invested in it. And when that happens, yes, the corporation really can become corrupt and manipulative.

It certainly doesn’t help that in the 1980s and 1990s we created new kinds of companies that didn’t need to provide services to succeed, only to buy and sell bonds, or provide services that governments tell people they have to buy, but that no one really wants. Only a particularly shady person wants to start a business selling something that other people have no choice but to buy from them.

And no human being is perfect, either. Sometimes people with poor character can become successful businesspeople, and as they make more money, they might use that to serve their own personal agenda. But it is not the business that made that person bad, they were a bad person, and as their business grew they had more money to bad deeds with. In fact, the service that their business provides may be one of the best and kindest things they have ever done.

It is easy for someone who has only ever worked for a government, only been a student, or only worked for a big company to look at the examples of old, corrupt corporations, or bad people who got rich in business and they used their power over their employees or their money to indulge their worst impulses, and conclude that all business and business people are bad.

We also seem to forget that every musician, every artist, every writer, poet, and journalist is a small business owner. Their creations are the service they are offering to the world- they sell the beauty of their minds.

I don’t expect you to become an entrepreneur, or to take over my business as I grow old. You are your own man. Nor will I tell you that I think that you should go into business. But I do want you to know that running business has valuable lessons to teach you. And if there is a change you want to make in the world, it may be the best way to make it happen.